When Sen. Susan Collins voted to unravel the Clean Air Act recently by supporting Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) disapproval resolution to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from implementing new fuel economy standards, I was shocked.

Collins pays a lot of lip service to ending big oil subsidies (one of her campaign promises from 2008), and the need to become more energy independent, but her votes in Washington, D.C. seem to contradict the speeches she gives to her constituents here in Maine.

If she supports developing clean energy, why would our senator vote “yes” on a resolution that would make the nation more dependent on foreign oil? Collins even co-sponsored a climate and energy bill this year, but seems unwilling to work with her colleagues across the aisle on other approaches to get something passed.

Maine’s senators stood up for big oil, leaving the people of Maine wondering where we fit in.

How do I benefit from Congress telling the EPA they cannot act on this problem while the U.S. Senate is unwilling to discuss it themselves?

If Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe think Congress should be setting new standards, why isn’t the U.S. Senate debating that issue right now and getting something accomplished?

Now is the time to work on and pass clean energy and climate protection legislation so that in 2014 we aren’t listening to Collins make the same campaign promises about big oil that she made two years ago.

Adam Gilley, Monmouth